Meeting the Moment: CJP’s Center for Combating Antisemitism

By Melissa Garlick, Senior Director of Combating Antisemitism and Building Civic Engagement

Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ Center for Combating Antisemitism (CCA) is a growing hub for Boston’s work in responding to antisemitism and bringing local and national partners’ work together strategically and in coordination with each other toward a vision where antisemitism becomes socially and politically unacceptable in Greater Boston. 

As ADL’s recently released annual audit confirmed, our community has been experiencing a staggering 189% rise of antisemitic incidents in Massachusetts. And this has also been coupled with the lack of preparedness by many civic leaders to adequately understand or respond to Jewish trauma. 

Leaders of businesses, educational institutions, and civic spaces in Boston need the tools and the resources to respond so that ultimately, we can reverse this disturbing trend and strengthen our civic and communal institutions.

Expanding infrastructure

This is long-term work. CJP, with our partners, are already growing our relationships with civic leaders across the city, bringing antisemitism training and education to businesses and other non-Jewish civic spaces. We’re educating our Jewish teens and their educators about antisemitism. And through our Communal Security Initiative, we are responding to the increased needs of our Jewish communal institutions for security preparedness.

CJP’s Center for Combating Antisemitism is building out its capacity to: 

• Mobilize civic and business leaders and engage them in our work to ensure that their institutions are safe and supportive places and spaces for all Jews.
• Educate the next generation — and the academic institutions that serve them — about antisemitism, Jewish history, and Jewish life to ensure that they both can confidently respond to acts of hate.
• Ensure that our Jewish community remains strong, safe, and vibrant by expanding CJP’s successful Communal Security Initiative.

We know that the latest report from the ADL comes amidst already rising incidents, grief, and trauma, and at a time where our community has been experiencing deep levels of anxiety and fear. We cannot let the fear throw us into despair. Instead, we must come together to use this information as power to educate our families, our networks, and our colleagues.

There’s more you can do

We’re quickly ramping up and expanding so we can effectively meet this moment, but we need your help — each of us plays a role in this work.

• We cannot do this alone. Please report incidents to the ADL. Identifying and reporting incidents is a critical piece of how we respond and fight back.Encourage everyone in your networks to sign up for CJP’s Face Jewish Hate newsletter.
• Visit FaceJewishHate.org for toolkits and resources to educate yourself and your families on antisemitism and how you can respond.
• Visit CJP’s Center for Combating Antisemitism to request trainings in your workplaces and other spaces.

We’re all in this fight together and will continue to work every day to ensure that Jews can live loudly, proudly, and safely in our community.